Early life and education

Pieper was born in Vlaardingen

Vlaardingen

Vlaardingen is a town in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is located on the north bank of the Nieuwe Maas/Nieuwe Waterweg river at the confluence with the Oude Maas...

, son of an engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 at a car manufacturer. His father died when Pieper was 20, and on his 18th birthday he suffered a motoring accident which destroyed his sporting career as a player of the Juventus Schiedam basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 team. According to Pieper, both of these experiences instilled him with a certain toughness. Pieper obtained his MSc Engineer's degree from the Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...

, 1980, in informatics

Informatics (academic field)

Informatics is the science of information, the practice of information processing, and the engineering of information systems. Informatics studies the structure, algorithms, behavior, and interactions of natural and artificial systems that store, process, access and communicate information...

.

Career in the USA

After graduation, he worked for ten years for Software AG

Software AG

Founded in 1969, Software AG is an enterprise software company with over 10,000 enterprise customers in over 70 countries. The company is the second largest software vendor in Germany, the fourth in Europe and among the top 25 globally...

 (both in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

). In the United States he worked for Unix System Laboratories

Unix System Laboratories

Unix System Laboratories was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...

 of AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

. In 1993, after the resignation of co-founder Ralph Ungermann, Roel became the president of Ungermann-Bass

Ungermann-Bass

Ungermann-Bass, also known as UB and UB Networks, was a computer networking company in the 1980s to 1990s. Located in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley, UB was the first large networking company independent of any computer manufacturer. UB was founded by Ralph Ungermann and Charlie Bass...

. Ungermann was tied to Tandem

Tandem

Tandem is an arrangement where a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction....

 by an earlier White Knight

White knight (business)

In business, a white knight, or "friendly investor," may be a corporation or a person that intends to help another firm. There are many types of white knights...

 deal and Ungermann resigned after his required term. Roel renamed the company UB Networks while it was a subsidiary of Tandem Computers

Tandem Computers

Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum uptime and zero data loss. The company was founded in...

. Roel restructured UB Networks research investments into ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...

 technology, which was popular at the time, instead of continuing Ralph Ungermann's earlier successful investments and leadership in Ethernet technology. Ungermann-Bass developed the first Virtual Network Architecture (VNA) in 1993, which was subsequently sold by Roel to Cisco. Cisco evolved Ethernet LAN based VNA into internet IP based VPNs. UB Networks ATM technology was sold to Newbridge Networks successfully in 1996 after Pieper joined Tandem Computers as CEO. In 1996 Pieper became president and CEO of Tandem Computers where he was instrumental in repositioning the company. Under Pieper's leadership Tandem was sold to Compaq

Compaq

Compaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....

 in 1997, and Pieper became a member of the executive board of Compaq. During his time in the US, Pieper gained a reputation as a successful restructurer. Under Pieper's leadership, USL, UB and Tandem Computer were successfully restructured and sold to strategic players in the industry.

Career in the Netherlands

Pieper returned to the Netherlands in 1998. For one year he was board member of the Dutch electronics giant Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

 by invitation of Cor Boonstra

Cor Boonstra

Cor Boonstra is mainly known as president of the Board of Directors of Philips .- Biography :At the age of 16, he quit his study at the Hogere burgerschool and started to work for Unilever. In 1974 he started to work for Sara Lee, where he ultimately became the president of the Board of...

, then Philips' president. This involvement ended abruptly in May 1999 when Pieper got involved in the claimed coding technology of Jan Sloot

Jan Sloot

Romke Jan Bernhard Sloot was a Dutch electronics technician, who claimed to have developed a revolutionary data compression technique, the Sloot Digital Coding System, which could compress a complete movie down to 8 kilobytes of data— this is orders of magnitude greater compression than the...

, a connection Pieper made on behalf of Philips. Philips officially decided not to use the technology. Pieper then decided to support the invention as a private investor and later also as board member, though Sloot's claimed huge compression is mathematically impossible. The inventor died of a heart attack shortly after he demonstrated his technology to a group of 20 investors and technology companies in the summer of 1999. After one year, Pieper ended his employment at Philips with a severance package of undisclosed value.

In 1998, together with ex-minister of economy Hans Wijers

Hans Wijers

Gerardus Johannes Wijers is the current CEO of AkzoNobel. From 1994 until 1998 he was a minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands for the liberal democrats party D66.- Personal :...

, Pieper set up Twinning, an incubator for starting entrepreneurs, particularly in the IT and especially the Internet sector. The project received ninety Million Guilder

Guilder

Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch gulden — from Old Dutch for 'golden'. The guilder originated as a gold coin but has been a common name for a silver or base metal coin for some centuries...

s of government subsidy, and as the Dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

 burst, the ministry decided to sell Twinning to a group of private investors. Of the fifty companies that Twinning started, more than 35 are still operating and some very successfully.

Pieper also independently took part in other IT businesses, including BitMagic of Michiel Frackers and Francisco van Jole. By 1 September 1999 Pieper was appointed as a professor of Electronic Commerce, a newly created chair at the faculty of informatics and technology management of the University of Twente.

At the end of 1999, Pieper founded Insight Capital Partners Europe, a private investment society for IT-businesses, now operating under the name of Favonius Ventures, particularly in the field of e-commerce. In November 2000 he became Chairman of the Board of Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a leading Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001...

, a Flemish company specializing in speech recognition technology. Pieper was instrumental in uncovering a financial scandal at this company, which took place in the period 1996-1999, before he joined the company. In cooperation with the Belgian authorities, Pieper helped to secure information that ultimately led to the formal charging of the founders Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie. Pieper left as Chairman of the board after the shareholders decided to appoint a new CEO.

In 2001, Pieper entered into the board of advisors of Nearshore IT services company, Levi9 Global Sourcing

Levi9 Global Sourcing

Levi9 Global Sourcing is a European provider of nearshore software engineering services with development and delivery centers across Serbia, Ukraine, Romania and Turkey...

 and conducted a study requested by minister Tineke Netelenbos

Tineke Netelenbos

Tineke Netelenbos née Tine Koomen is a Dutch politician.-References:...

 for setting up a system for road pricing, called Mobimiles. Later that year he became president of Connekt, an organisation for addressing road tolling issues in the Netherlands.

Eclipse Aviation

In 2003, Pieper started a new venture involving Very Light Jets (VLJ), in cooperation with Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Eclipse Aviation Corporation.

In 2003 Pieper together with a Russian businessman Daniel Bolotin started the joint venture investment business creating a Luxembourg-based company, called European Technology and Investment Research Center (or ETIRC).
The main project of ETIRC was ETIRC Aviation, sought to establish an Air Taxi

Air taxi

An air taxi is an air charter passenger or cargo aircraft which operates on an on-demand basis.-Regulation:In the United States, air taxi and air charter operations are governed by Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations , unlike the larger scheduled air carriers which are governed by more...

 network for Europe, Turkey and Russia and a second manufacturing location for the Eclipse 500 jet in Russia for the European market. In July, 2008, ETIRC Aviation, which by then had become Eclipse Aviation's largest shareholder, ousted Eclipse Aviation founder Vern Raburn from his position as CEO, and Pieper took over the job of acting CEO for Eclipse Corporation.

In the autumn of 2008, several Eclipse customers sued Eclipse for the return of their deposits, claiming they had waited years for the delivery of their Eclipse 500 jets. In November, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the stated plan that a new company, headed by Pieper, would buy the assets of Eclipse and continue manufacturing. Pieper attempted to secure the necessary funds for this acquisition, but was unsuccessful. This was mainly due to the economic downturn, which led to several potential investors bowing out at the last moment. Eclipse Aviation ran out of money in mid-February 2009 and ceased operations and laid off its remaining 850 employees. On February 25, a group of creditors petitioned the Delaware bankruptcy court to convert Eclipse's bankruptcy to Chapter 7 liquidation. Soon thereafter the board of directors (including Pieper) acknowledged the company had no other options but Chapter 7, effectively ending the company's 10-year run, during which it spent an estimated $2 billion in investments and loans. Various reports following the Chapter 7 filing of the company insinuated financial problems for Pieper as a result of the Eclipse failure. However, none of these reports were found to be based on any evidence or facts.

On 7 April 2009 ETIRC BV in the Netherlands declared bankruptcy. The Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 newspaper de Volkskrant

De Volkskrant

de Volkskrant is a national daily Dutch morning newspaper, the leading centre-left broadsheet, although now in tabloid size.-History:...

 reported that Pieper had invested US$146 million in Eclipse through ETIRC.. Roel Pieper has multiple lawsuits pending on the demise of ETIRC. There are primarly consultants who have not been paid for 6 months . A Lawyer firm that specialises in take overs and bankrupcy claims . And Al Mann who had Roel Pieper sign a 10 million colleteral before he would invest 20 million in Eclipse.

This investment was done with non-collateral US$150 million credit of Russian "Sviaz-bank". The Russian newspaper Vedomosti

Vedomosti

Vedomosti is a Russian language business daily. It is a joint venture between Dow Jones, the Financial Times and Sanoma, publishers of The Moscow Times....

 reported that this credit became later an object of criminal investigation.

At the same time he was fighting to save Eclipse Pieper was investing tens of millions of dollars in a Russian technology to extract diesel fuel from coal. That project enabled him to attract Russian interest in Eclipse. The Liquid to Coal project is on hold and will restart when oil prices have reached prices again above 100 dollars per barrel.

A venture capital investor is expected to have some of its investments fail. Recent failures include a magazine, Opinio, much older projects such as a web site, Tradingcars.com, and the telecommunications company Stonehenge. Efforts to start MyGuide, a company specializing in GPS navigation units and meant to compete with TomTom , also failed. Roel Pieper has been held accountable by the Receivership of MyGuide for the lack of an administration, a coherent strategy and inferior products. There is currently a claim of 2 million Euros pending .

Personal life

In May 2003, Pieper was involved in an incident in which a confused man broke into his house in Aerdenhout

Aerdenhout

Aerdenhout is a small town in the municipality of Bloemendaal, the Netherlands. Located in the dunes between Haarlem and the Netherlands's popular beach town Zandvoort, it ranks as the wealthiest town in the Netherlands...

, and stabbed his wife who made a full recovery. Pieper is married and has six children. In the summer of 2007, Pieper became one of the major owners of the MyGuide Amsterdam

MyGuide Amsterdam

ABC Amsterdam is a Dutch professional basketball club based in Amsterdam.ABC Amsterdam has won the Dutch Basketball League 7 times, in 1999-2002,2005, 2008 and 2009. They won the play-offs 4-3 against Eiffel Towers, Den Bosch to win the Dutch Professional basketball league title for the season...

 Basketball Club and is working with the city of Amsterdam on a new youth project in cooperation with the school network Amarantis. In 2009 Pieper no longer was involved with MyGuide Amsterdam which closed its doors in April 2011.

The man who stabbed Pieper's wife was convicted and sentenced to compulsory psychiatric treatment in a closed judicial institute (Terbeschikkingstelling in the Dutch language). He then was granted a temporary leave in 2007. Pieper emigrated to France in 2008. One of the stated reasons being that he was not informed, or was informed far too late, by the police or Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Justice (Netherlands)

The Ministry of Security and Justice is the Dutch ministry of justice. Until 14 October 2010, the ministry was just called Ministry of Justice , but at the start of the Rutte cabinet, the name changed because it had taken over some public safety duties from the Ministry of the Interior...

of this temporary leave.

External links

• Bio from University of Twente
• Onbescheiden durfkapitalist, article from De Groene Amsterdammer